Fire Born
Queen of the Seven Stars Book One
A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance
By Kallista Dane
Copyright July 2018 Fire Born by Kallista Dane
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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Editor: Kate Richards, Wizards in Publishing
Cover Artist: Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs
Published in the United States of America
This e-book is a work of fiction. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
FREE book
The Scroll
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
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The Scroll
“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of stars
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon…And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to earth: and the dragon stood before the woman…”
(Rev 12: 1-4)
Prologue
Drayke
She crooked a gnarled finger at me. Beckoning. Beckoning.
I took a hesitant step, then stopped. The soil beneath my feet was hot. As though a river of fire flowed just below the surface.
Wordlessly, she bade me come closer.
I glanced around, apprehensive. Darkness had swallowed up every landmark. No stars lit the night sky. All I could see was the ground beneath my feet, now glowing like the embers from a dying fire, and the shadowy figure perched on a rock in the distance.
She’d called me here. Sending her message over and over, until I was compelled to do as she commanded.
“Claim your destiny.”
First a faint whisper, deep in the recesses of my mind. Then more insistent. Finally, a cacophony of sounds and images disturbing my rest every night.
Tonight, I woke from a sound sleep with her shrill voice echoing in my ears. Left my bed in the middle of the night, drew on my clothes, and climbed out the window. “No one must know,” warned her voice in my head. “See that no one follows you.”
I took the route she showed me in my dreams. If dreams they were. The interludes were more like private sessions with a cranky sorceress who read the bones to foretell my fate. One who delighted in tormenting me, denying me rest until I did as she commanded.
Leaving the lights of the city behind, I headed for the deep purple mountain looming over our homeland. No one ascended to its peak. Over the centuries, strange occurrences had frightened off the curious. Others who ventured there disappeared, never to return. The summit was shrouded in mystery, said to be the dwelling place of ogres and cunning imps. Of strange beasts uttering mournful cries and terrible roars. As a lad, my nurse had me listen for them in the wind howling down through the pass on dark and stormy nights.
“Do ye hear them? ’Tis a cursed place,” she’d say. “Filled with demons. Promise me ye’ll never venture there, my lord. No good will come of it.”
Fear gnawed at my belly, but I went on. I was no timid lad. Tomorrow, I’d be thirteen. Practically a grown man. It was time to face this night terror. Put it to rest, so I could dream of golden-haired maidens on the eves to come.
I marched on, humming under my breath. A fight song, though why they called it that was a mystery to me. I doubted our warriors crooned catchy tunes when marching into battle, and I was quite certain they didn’t break into song as they lopped the heads off their enemies. In truth, it should have been called a drinking song. One the old men belted out as they clanked mugs in the tavern, swapping lies of their exploits back when they were valiant and virile. All the same, I found a scrap of courage in the stirring melody.
Gods knew, I needed every ounce of bravery I could muster when I caught sight of her at last.
I could barely make her out in the dim red glow, but from what I could see, she was old. Ancient. She sat hunched over with her back to me, head slightly turned so I caught just a sliver of her wrinkled face. Her nose was sharp as a crow’s beak, her eyes mere slits. A tangled mess of silver-white hair hung down her back, nearly reaching her waist. She was shrouded in a shapeless black cloak. Despite the stifling heat emanating from the earth beneath us, she held the garment tight around her neck with her other hand.
I grimaced as the scorching heat penetrated the soles of my boots. Burned my feet.
“Closer.” Her voice was thin and reedy, the voice of an old crone.
Narrow slashes began to appear in the ground around me, open wounds in the earth oozing fire red as blood.
To this day, I don’t know why I obeyed. I’ve thought about it long and often. She hadn’t put a spell on me, though I had no doubt she could have if she’d wanted to. I’d never seen anyone look more like a witch straight out of the tales I read in my childhood. I still believe I had the freedom at that moment to choose my destiny.
But like the foolhardy young man I was, I kept going – and thereby sealed my fate.
Melisandre
I stood in the shadows, watching. Neither of them could see me, of that I was certain. I’d been there so many times before.
The young man stared wide-eyed at the fissures appearing in the ground beneath his feet, glanced around wildly. There was no safe path to take. Behind him, lava began bubbling to the surface. In front of him, flames as tall as a horse shot from ragged openings pockmarking the surface. He headed toward the old woman, leaping over the widening gaps.
When I first saw him, he’d been just a lad. Over the years, he’d aged, until now the figure I beheld was that of a full-grown male. Tall and strong.
He swiveled his head in my direction, and I saw his face clearly for the first time. Square jaw a
nd chiseled cheekbones highlighted by the light and shadow of the flickering flames. High forehead with a stray lock of wavy dark hair falling over it. And warm brown eyes, reflecting the glow of the fire.
He looked straight at me. I shrank back into the shadows, but he never acknowledged my existence. It was as though I was a wraith, a spirit hovering at the scene.
The old woman beckoned him again. He turned away from me and walked straight across the glowing coals.
As I watched, his boots burst into flame, yet he kept moving forward. He stripped off his shirt and tried to smother the blaze as he walked, but the garment caught fire. He tossed it aside. It hurtled through the dark sky like a dying comet.
His upper body glistened with a film of sweat from the heat. When he moved, sleek muscles flexed on his chest, highlighted by the glow of the fire.
The flames moved up from his boots, burned away his trousers. I watched his face contort in pain.
Still he walked on, now naked as the day he was born. Sweat poured off him, ran in rivulets over his powerful chest, down his back. I caught my breath. Though I’d witnessed his meeting with the old woman many times, I’d never seen him unclothed before. In fact, I’d never seen any grown male stark naked.
I had no idea a man’s body could be so beautiful.
In the glow of the flames, the muscles in his ass and thighs rippled under his skin as he moved. His penis jutted out from his body, thick and long. Swaying from side to side as he strode on. I gasped. Were all men so big?
Though I was a virgin, I knew about sex. I’d heard my female servants giggling and sharing secrets. I had a sudden urge to touch his cock. To run my fingers over the silky-smooth surface and see if there really was a core of steel beneath, like they said. My belly clenched, and I felt a gush between my legs.
I heard an ominous rumbling. The ground shuddered beneath my feet.
And then the earth burst open, spewing a river of fire that crossed his path, flowing between him and the old woman.
He never hesitated, simply strode into the inferno.
The flames swallowed him up. I watched as his body turned black, his beautiful bare skin blistering and cracking apart.
He opened his mouth and I cringed, expecting to hear him scream in agony.
Instead, over the crackling and thrumming of the flames, I heard a terrible roar. Saw with my own eyes brilliant red scales forming where skin had once been, the huge crimson and gold wings unfurling from his scorched back. Watched in horror as he shot a tongue of fire from his mouth. Watched the magnificent young man transform into a beautiful, horrible beast.
A fire-born dragon.
I woke drenched in sweat. I’d had the dream again. More vivid than ever. In the past, I hadn’t seen him naked. I knew I’d never get back to sleep.
My pussy was wet. The tiny bud at the apex of my thighs throbbed as erotic images flooded my brain. The sight of his erect manhood had stirred wicked cravings in me. Dark desires. Hungers I had neither the time nor the ability to satisfy.
I had too many responsibilities. Utmost among them was the responsibility to remain unsullied. Even if my magnificent young man was real and I managed to find him somehow, I could hardly claim to be a virgin queen if I opened my legs to welcome that gorgeous cock. No matter how much I longed to have it fill the emptiness inside me right now.
I sighed and slid one hand between my thighs, stroking my little bud. Panting and squirming as I imagined the thick shaft of the fire-born dragon lord thrusting into me, setting me on fire.
Knowing all the while even the wicked sensations pouring through my body wouldn’t block out the overwhelming feeling of dread that has been with me for so long.
Chapter One
Melisandre
I claimed the throne three weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday.
Looking back, it seems absurd. A young girl, barely more than a child, seizing the reins of a kingdom. Taking on the responsibility of caring for the well-being, the very lives, of millions.
At the time, I felt I had no choice. My father, King Vidos, had been murdered. I knew it as surely as I know my own name. But I couldn’t prove it.
Sometimes I knew things. Simply knew them. Without reading or learning or even hearing of them. Even then, the gift flowed through me. I tried to tell the palace doctors he’d been assassinated, but they wouldn’t listen. They chalked it up to the grief-stricken rantings of a silly young girl.
I don’t know how I would have survived those first weeks – no, months – if not for Antonius. The king’s vizier. A witty, acerbic, crafty old man, I inherited him along with the massive jewel-encrusted crown. The one that gave me a headache every time I had to don it. My father trusted Antonius, turned to him for the two things a king rarely gets – wise counsel unencumbered by a desire for personal gain, and harsh truth. He was the one man in the kingdom who had the courage to tell my father when he’d made a mistake, when he was wrong. I’d heard Antonius call my father a stubborn ass. An idiot. A fool.
He does the same to me now.
The day after the funeral, I lay curled up on my bed in a sodden heap of tears. Grief-stricken. Terrified. Unable to pull myself together enough to leave my bedchamber.
I cringed at the knock on my door.
“Sally Anne, I told you I’m not to be disturbed. Go away.”
The door opened. I snapped at her without lifting my head from where I’d cradled it in my arms. “For the last time, no, I don’t want any breakfast. I don’t need a cool cloth for my forehead. I just need you to leave me alone!”
“No.”
I knew that deep voice. It wasn’t Sally Anne’s.
“Go away, Antonius,” I sobbed. “I don’t want to deal with anything today.”
“What you want doesn’t matter anymore. Get up and get dressed. You have a meeting with the High Council in less than an hour to plan your coronation.”
I shrieked and threw a pillow at him. “I’m not going! You can’t make me! It’s too cruel.”
He dodged the pillow, came over, and dragged the bedcovers off me. “Cruel? You want to talk about cruel? Cruel is leaving the fate of your people in the hands of that bunch of selfish, sanctimonious bastards. They’re just waiting for an excuse to challenge your right to rule. Acting like a helpless, grief-stricken little girl plays right into their hands.”
“I am a helpless, grief-stricken little girl,” I wailed.
He crossed his arms and glared at me. “Not today you aren’t. You’re the queen, the supreme ruler. So, start acting like it. Suck it up. Get out of bed and get dressed.”
“Did you just tell me to suck it up?”
I’d known Antonius since the day I was born, as had my father before me. Dark and swarthy, he had the heavy brows and beaked nose of an Arab sheik. By my reckoning, he had to be nearly eighty, though he seemed ageless to me. He still had a full head of black hair without a touch of gray and exuded the power and vitality of a much younger man.
In his role as vizier, Antonius was stern. Austere. I’d seen grown men quake when he fixed those piercing black eyes on them. Next to my father, he was the most powerful person in the land because everyone knew he had the ear of the king. Though he came from humble beginnings, even the members of the High Council treated him with respect.
Although not a blood relative, he always treated me the way a kindly old uncle might. Respectfully affectionate, mildly indulgent. He’d never spoken a harsh word to me before. I sat up and stared at him, eyes wide.
“Yes. I said suck it up. You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself. You father is dead, and you’re his only heir. He’s been grooming you for this day all your life.” Antonius’s voice dropped. “We both knew it was coming. Just not so soon.”
“They murdered him, Antonius! It had to be some kind of untraceable poison. I tried to tell the doctors, but they wouldn’t listen. Father was strong and healthy. He wouldn’t have simply dropped de
ad.”
Antonius nodded. “Yes.”
“You believe me?”
The old man sat down on a chair by the window, facing me. His expression was one of infinite tenderness, yet I sensed a controlled fury bubbling just under the surface.
“Melisandre, I hoped I could wait a while before having this talk with you. You’re right. Your father was murdered.”
I hopped out of bed, sank to my knees in front of his chair. “We have to do something! His killer is out there. We have to find him, bring him to justice.”
Antonius shook his head. His shoulders slumped. The glare of the morning sun revealed every line, every wrinkle on his face, and I saw him for the first time for what he was. A tired old man, weary of keeping up the pretense of strength and vitality. His king, his dearest, oldest friend, was dead. He, too, was mourning a terrible loss.
That’s the moment I grew up. Quit thinking only of myself. Found the strength to put aside my own pain and reach out to comfort another.
I swiped my tears away and laid a hand on his. “I’m sorry for your loss, Antonius. I know you and my father were very close.”
“I loved him like a son, my lady.” His shoulders heaved with the effort of holding back a sob. I watched as he swallowed and pulled his shoulders back, marveling at the inner strength it took to put aside such a crushing burden and move on. Though only moments ago I’d thought myself a grownup, I realized I had many lessons still to learn from Antonius.
“There is no need to puzzle out your father’s killer. I know who murdered him.”
“Let’s go! You can tell the palace guards who it is. They’ll scour the kingdom day and night until we find him and make him pay for his crime.” I jumped up, ready to dash from the room, forgetting I was still in my nightdress.
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